


Post-Mission

by AmyNChan



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: F/M, letMakaAndSoulSleep2k18, they are tired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-19 23:16:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15520872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmyNChan/pseuds/AmyNChan
Summary: They just gotta wait 28 minutes.





	Post-Mission

The door clicked shut behind them and they were enveloped in darkness.  She didn’t mind the lower light, though.  It actually felt good against her eyes, both of which probably would have screamed if exposed to any more faux light.  Her partner and friend shuffled away from the door and into their shared kitchen.  Probably for the first aid kit.  The woman herself made her way to the living room, preparing for their after-mission ritual.

Maka Albarn and Soul Evans had hammered this out many years ago, back when they were still in the academy.  Even if neither of them needed to be sent to the hospital, they still tended to require _some_ form of patching up.  Antiseptic, bandages, gauze, pain medication, heating pads.  It could all be found in the kitchen in an organized little basket under the sink.  Whoever was the least injured—or in some cases whoever had food duty—would grab the basket and begin patching up the other while they discussed what to do about dinner.  Cooking after a difficult mission tended to be a bad idea for everyone involved, so they often had takeout after missions that left them particularly drained.

“Chinese sound good to you?” asked Soul.  His voice was lower, quieter than when they had been outside.  He tended to do that after missions when they came home.  She found it soothing.

“Sounds good.”  She gently rolled her head, hoping to work out a few of the kinks that had developed in her neck and back.  When she sat, the amount of running and fighting she’d done over the past few days seemed to catch up with her all at once, leaving her absolutely no desire to stand ever again.  “Just not that new place.  Their prices are insane.”

A scoff from her left told her two things:  that Soul had already sat down beside her with the kit in hand and that he didn’t quite agree with her.  She frowned lightly.  “We could buy five eggrolls from our normal place for the price of two at that new spot.  They’re expensive.”

“But they’re closer, and I’m hungry,” grumbled Soul.  Maka turned to argue but was interrupted by the sound of Soul’s stomach.  Wide eyed, she stared for a moment.  He shrugged.  “What?”

Maka shook her head to rid herself of her surprise.  Soul’s metabolism always seemed to skyrocket out of proportion after a mission.  It’s why Chinese food—the affordable kind—was often their saving grace after such work.  She then turned away from Soul and reached for the phone.

“If we order sooner, we’ll eat sooner.  And if we order from our regular, we can afford more to eat.  That work for you?”

She took Soul’s mutterings as a yes of some sort and dialed the familiar number.  As always, it picked up on the second and a half ring and their order was taken within a minute and a half.  She hung up, satisfied that their meal was on its way.

“Think you can wait 28 minutes?” asked Maka.  Her teasing was not appreciated by Soul, who promptly landed his jaw on her shoulder with a groan.

“I’ll never survive,” complained Soul.  “Looks like you’ll have to train a new death scythe.  The hunger’s too much.”

There was a time when such nearness would have bothered Maka.  It would have made her downright uncomfortable.  But this was _Soul_.  He was her best friend and partner; their bond was one they had forged specifically _through_ closeness.  And as the years had worn on, their mental and emotional closeness had been joined by this physical easiness, this relaxation they could—and often would—share with one another.

“Poor you,” said Maka lightly.  She reached a hand up to spread her fingers through his white hair.  Sweat had piled on and dried at the base of his skull, and some of it had even dripped through the lower chunks of hair, but the sensation was familiar and comforting even if it was a bit gross.  She could feel their soul wavelengths bouncing off each other.  He enjoyed the feeling as much as she did.

Maka shifted her weight to lean further against the couch without jostling her partner too much, but she felt a snag in her upper back that prevented her from doing anything of the sort.  She tried to maneuver the discomfort away, but it was too late.  Soul had noticed.

“What hurts?”  He hadn’t moved his head, but she could feel his soul lose the sense of ease it had had a moment before.  She frowned for half of a moment before the ache in her back pointedly reminded her what had broken their moment of serenity in the first place.

“My neck and back.  I think it’s just that my muscles are sore, but the heating pa-a-ah…”

She didn’t know why she insisted on trying to remind him where the heating pads were.  A faint part of her mind suggested that maybe one day he wouldn’t want to give her these massages, maybe he’d be too tired or too hungry or too sore or just not in the mood after a mission to give them.   But _damn_ if they didn’t feel wonderful.  Even when he came across a particularly difficult knot, he would ease it and rub the stiffness out of it in just the right way.  Soul’s after-mission massages were a blessing, honestly, and she always felt better after getting one.

He spent another minute or so working out the kinks before he finished.  Maka felt a bit of the mission’s fatigue drain away from her once he had.

“Better?”

“Much.  Thank you.”  Maka didn’t need to be looking at him to know he was shaking his head.  Needed or not, he had her thanks.  For this time and every other.  She turned to face him, barely making out his features in the dark.  “What about you?  How’s your side?”

“Fine.”  Maka frowned at him, but he tried to wave her concern away.  “Really, it’s just a scratch.”

“Let me see.”

Soul snorted.  “You and what light?”

“You know I can see you if I want to.  Now let me see.”

Maka used her own soul to provide a soft blue glow by which to examine her partner.  She waited patiently as Soul moved his shirt up his rib cage so she could inspect the wound.  The instant air hit, they both hissed.  He in pain and she in sympathy.

“You should have told me,” said Maka as she pulled the kit to her side.  She rummaged around for a moment before finding the anesthetic and adhesive bandage she wanted.  After a fair warning, Maka sprayed the anesthetic on and Soul took a moment to adjust to the pain. 

As soon as the uncomfortable sensation seemed to subside, she placed the large bandage over his wound, protecting it from any chance of infection.  They were lucky in the fact that it truly wasn’t too deep and they wouldn’t need to have it looked at by a medical professional.  It was simply better that they disinfected and protected it before the wound could become worse.  She pressed the bandage against his skin to ensure it wouldn’t go anywhere.

Their partnership had been long and filled with many battles.  There were so many times where they had come home with various injuries.  Sometimes it felt as though their carpet had seen more blood than a morgue.  But they were always there to patch the other up, to make sure the other hadn’t taken on too many needless wounds.  It was a part of what kept their partnership so strong, the fact that they knew the other would always be there to help fix them up.

Soul’s hand encroached on hers softly, gently, pulling her slowly into the reality that lay before her.  Between his side and his hand, she found her own hand to be quite warm.  Quite warm and comfortable.  Her gaze flickered to his face, which had come closer to hers while she had been applying the adhesive.  The thrumming in her chest said that she didn’t mind.

“Hey.”  It was a whisper, soft and inviting.  Low, meant only for her ears.  With the distance so small between them, she knew he could see her smile.  The danger, with all its bumps, bruises, and blood, had passed.

“Hey.”

“So,” asked Soul, his thumb moving over her hand.  “Am I going to live?”

“You’d better,” returned Maka with a soft smirk.  “It’d be a pain in the ass to try and train another Death Scythe, given that it’s illegal and all now.”

The two of them shared a chuckle at the joke, overused as it was.  They were both sore, both tired, and both hungry.  But they had about 20 minutes before they could do anything about it.

“Think if I ask Kidd, he can teleport food to us?”

“He’s the god of death, not the god of instant food.”

“Right. I should ask Black*Star.”

That gave Maka pause before she snorted.  “Please don’t start praying to Black*Star.  I don’t think I could take it.”

“Why not? It’s a free country.”  Soul’s smirk only prompted further chuckling as Maka tried to keep her voice down and her breathing relatively even.

“Because we do not need Black*Star to break in here with a bag full of food that he’d probably eat by himself anyways,” replied Maka.  “I don’t think my head could take the noise.  Or your stomach the loss of food.”

Said stomach grumbled in enthusiastic protest.  With both Maka and his own body revolting against him, he was forced to surrender.  Maka grinned as he held up one hand to showcase his admission of defeat.  “All right, all right, I get it.”

Maka chuckled, but her head still felt heavy.  And while Soul had worked absolute _wonders_ with her back, it still carried with it the fatigue of several days’ worth of chasing and fighting.  But they had to wait for the food to show up, so there was that.

But she felt so… so comfortable here with Soul.  His soul had that air of coziness about it that made the very _thought_ of leaving before she absolutely had to irksome.  No, she wanted to stay in the living room and wait until the food arrived.

Her eyes wandered over his face, taking in the look of fatigue he was sporting as well.  He looked as though he were barely awake at that point.  She slipped her hand away from his bandage and his tried to follow, but his tiredness meant that his hand only caught empty air.  Her hand, however, didn’t go too far; it ended up gently holding his face, keeping some of the hair back.  His reaction was instant: his eyes fluttered shut, his head lolled a little into her hand, and his soul gave off a pleasant thrum.

“You’re exhausted.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Soul.”  But Maka knew it was no use.  Soul could be just as stubborn—if not more so—than herself sometimes.  All right, a lot of the time.  It was part of what made them such a great pair.  He would go to sleep whenever he wanted to and he would stay awake for as long as he felt he needed to.  And with food on the way, she knew he wasn’t going anywhere until it had arrived and was safely stored in his belly. 

“Maka.”

The girl couldn’t help but feel fondly exasperated by her partner’s response.  He wasn’t moving until he had food, and they still had about ten minutes until anything would arrive.  “If you fall asleep while you’re eating, I’ll take pictures.”

“Get real,” said Soul from his place on her hand.  He didn’t seem to realize that he was leaning more and more into it.  At least, Maka hoped he didn’t realize.  She was trying to get him to lean onto the couch’s back.  “You’re just as hungry as I am.”

“So?  I have two hands,” said the woman, wiggling her fingers beneath Soul’s cheek to illustrate her point.  It was at that moment that Soul’s head and Maka’s hand touched down on the couch, but Soul made no motion to move.  Instead, he grinned.

“You were saying?” he asked.  Or, he would have.  Had a yawn not broken through.

“Uh-huh,” said Maka, a smirk of her own painting itself across her face.  “You wanna run the ‘I’m not tired, I’m hungry’ bit by me one more time?”

“Sure, because I’m keeping this hand from doing unspeakable evils.”  So saying, he pressed his head against her hand a little bit before relenting.  “The world is a cooler place because of my good deed.”

“Cooler without blackmail photos of you, you mean?” asked Maka.

“You know it.”

Maka’s laugh was little more than a breath as she adjusted herself.  Having her hand trapped under her partner’s face made getting comfortable a bit tricky, but she managed to find a spot that helped her breathe a bit easier.

“You sure you’re not the tired one?” asked Soul as soon as she was situated.  Maka fought valiantly against the yawn that wanted to burst forth following his statement.  It was a fight she lost.

“My face wasn’t the first one to hit the couch, mister death scythe,” said Maka.  “And let’s not forget that I can see those bags under your eyes.  _And_ I know just how far of a ride we had to take from the hotel.”

Soul scoffed at her observations with a lazy grin.  “I could keep going for days.”

“Not this time,” rebutted Maka.  Unlike when she was about to go on a mission or when something needed to be done, her voice was softer, quieter.  It was more soothing than the voice she had when she was leading.  And it had its intended effect.  Soul’s eyes began to drift closed.  “This time, we’ll get some food and then we’ll go to bed.”

“…be gross,” complained Soul.  Maka knew he was talking about the dirt and grime they’d collected.  “Uncool.”

“We can shower in the morning.”  Maka’s assurance was low as Soul’s breathing began to even out.  Her own breathing began to temper and she could feel another yawn coming on.  “Tomorrow’s…a free day.”

Soul’s response was little more than a sarcastic sound before he was dragged into the abyss of unconsciousness.  Maka smiled as she watched him sleep.  Five to seven minutes of rest may not be enough to call it good for the night, but it would get him through dinner, at least.

And with that thought tucked away, she made herself comfortable.  She had a delivery to wait for.

* * *

 

It sucked to be the new guy on the delivery job.  He got the worst hours, delivered to the weirdest places, and he never got tipped.  Tonight alone he’d had some guy complain about his pin being on one side, another guy and his weirdo guest call him a fool…repeatedly…, and some witch that had tried to take his delivery.

So by the time he made it to his last job of the night—some place in the middle of Death City where the streets aren’t even and the buildings aren’t labelled right—he’d been half an hour late and almost 100% sure he wouldn’t get a tip.

Again.

But still, he was here, so he had to raise his hand, knock on the door, and deliver the food that was probably too cold to be edible.  He’d probably have to deal with an angry meister/weapon pair again.  Oh, boy.

But before his fist met the door, it was opened, revealing a full-bodied woman with purple hair and twinkling orange eyes.  She had some kind of black witchy outfit.  The instant her eyes clapped onto the sight of the bag in his hand, though, she gave a silent squeal of joy.

“Thank you,” she whispered excitedly, stuffing a wad of bills into his hand.  “You’re so thoughtful to let Maka-chan and Soul-kun sleep!  Blair will put all of this in the fridge, yes, since that’s where her food is, too.  Thank you, mister delivery-man!”

So pleased was she that she landed a delicate kiss on his cheek before shutting the door.  Now feeling lightheaded and with a wad of cash in his hand, the delivery boy made his way back to the company car on shaky legs.  Being the new guy on the delivery job _rocked_.


End file.
